Pastor Alvin T. Dupree and discusses unity in the community as part of a panel during a "Building Relationships" forum Tuesday, June 19, 2018, in Appleton, Wis.
Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wis

APPLETON - Building bonds between police officers on the street and the public — including minority populations — is key to maintaining trust in the community, the Appleton police chief said Tuesday at a forum designed to foster unity in the city.

“This isn’t about jumping fences and kicking in doors and seeing how many people you can put in jail,” Chief Todd Thomas said of his message to current officers and those joining the force. “This is about building relationships, being a public servant and exhibiting those core values that we talked about — compassion, integrity, courage. If you don’t have those, you’re not going to be employed by the Appleton Police Department.”

Thomas joined several other community leaders at the fourth annual Building Relationships Forum, hosted by Family First Ministries in downtown Appleton.

The session was held on Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Joining Thomas on the panel were Alvin T. Dupree Jr., Family First Ministries pastor and member of the Appleton School Board, Outagamie County Judge John Des Jardins, Appleton Area School District Superintendent Judy Baseman, Appleton Diversity Coordinator Karen Nelson and panel moderator Ronald Dunlap, a retired school administrator.

Dupree said he was motivated to launch this annual forum four years ago because of the hostility he saw between law enforcement and the African American community. He wanted to bring community leaders in Appleton to the table, including Thomas.

“We’re going to come together to help rid our community of the concern that our officers are just out shooting at random or not really having good equitable practices and really build that relationship in the beginning with some of the community members that were literally concerned or were afraid of the things that could have taken place,” Dupree told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Thomas said this forum and other community conversations about police work are important in that building of unity.

“There’s a lifeblood to law enforcement nowadays, and that’s community trust,” Thomas told those in attendance.

Thomas spoke about the importance of community policing and how it is being used to build trust within the city.

“You see so many agencies now who make it a special league, certain officers are their community policing officers and that’s what their job is,” Thomas said. “We don’t have that approach, we have a philosophy that every single officer, including myself and every civilian employee, is a community policing officer.”

Other concerns raised at the forum included the ongoing impact of school shootings across the country and the need to help children not be afraid to go to school.

Thomas emphasized the importance of maintaining a partnership with the school district and for school resource officers to focus on mentorship and helping kids.